In this week’s Beef Focus, Agriland traveled to a farm located near the shores of Lough Ramor in Co. Cavan to the home of a 160-cow pedigree Aberdeen Angus herd.
Leo McEnroe is a well-known Angus breeder based in Lisduff, Virginia, Co. Cavan. He is currently gearing up for an on-farm sale of pedigree Angus bulls next Saturday, April 30.
Farming alongside his family, the progeny of the McEnroes’ Liduff Angus Herd has won awards countrywide. The Lisduff prefix can be found in Angus herds across Europe from the Azores to Russia.
Leo explained that the farm is growing its offering of red Angus cattle, saying that 50 of the 160 pedigree Angus cows on the farm are reds.
“There was always red genes in the Angus breed but traditionally, they weren’t liked by some of the Angus connoisseurs and were diminished over the years,” he said.
However, it seems red Angus cattle are growing in popularity again and pedigree Angus heifers sporting the red coat have secured the top price in many pedigree Angus sales over the past few months.
The system
The home farm consists of an 80ac block of land and a further 280ac of land is rented. The rented land is fragmented and some of this has on-farm accommodation.
Commenting on his farm system, Leo said that cows calve all year round. The idea of this is to have a variation of bulls available.
“Some farmers like younger bulls that will serve heifers, other farmers want a stronger, older bull that will serve heifers and work with cows also,” he said.
Leo has a preference for calving cows during the grazing season. He said: “We like to calve outdoors because we find it is less expensive than calving indoors.
“I find when I calve cows in the summer months, the the calf gets the biestings and is tagged and there tends to be very little difficulty with them afterwards.”
“It works well for us here when the calf goes into the shed in October/November at four-months-of-age or more and is fit for a hit of hardship.”
“We have a creep area in the shed so the calves can come off to lye and get ration.”
Calves are weaned in February, and by late-February, calves over eight months of age go to grass.
“The calf is 300-350kg at that stage and doesn’t do much poaching. They have a pick of grass and are healthier outside.”
Kale is grown on the farm to feed bulls outside for the winter. This year, 15 of the stronger bulls that were on kale were housed in early spring because ground got too wet.
Heifers are generally wintered indoors. Cattle are fed silage and straw during the winter on the farm and there is no diet feeder used on the farm.
In the summer, bulls are kept at home and females go to grass on outfarms.
Selling cattle
“Our market place for the bulls is generally 40% dairy farmers, 40% suckler beef farmers and 20% to pedigree farmers,” Leo said.
He added that initially, markets for heifers were confined to Irish breeders, saying: “16 years ago, we put our first export consignment together destined for the Azores.
“We developed an export market for pedigree Angus cattle to the Azores initially and then to mainland Portugal.
“To date, we have supplied about 1,600 breeding heifers from Irish breeders to Portugal. We have also supplied pedigree Angus heifers to Spain, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania and in 2013, we supplied 239 Angus to Russia.”
Leo added: “I’m not in it for the final dime like some exporters who try to cream all the money because at the end of the day, I am a breeder myself.”
Upcoming sale
The Lisduff Herd is set to host its annual bull sale next Saturday, April 30. The McEnroes recently built a new shed and installed a sale rings in it which Leo finds is working well for their on-farm sales.
The sale will feature 40 bulls, 10 of which are red Angus. The bulls range from 22-months of age back to 12 months.
Farmers are welcome to see the bulls on-farm before the sale and can contact the Lisduff Herd to arrange an appointment.
Bidding is avaliable on MartEye through Ballyjamesduff Mart. Ringside bidding is also available and refreshments will be provided on the day also.
The farm will also host a heifer sale in October and an open day in the first week of September where “everyone is welcome to come see the cattle and see what we are doing here”, Leo concluded.
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